Don’t be fooled, this short little book surprisingly is a heavier weight of exegesis than what its size may look like. After seeing this work cited in various footnotes in Dispensational books and journal articles, I thought I go to the source and read this book myself. I was not disappointed. The book focuses on the Prophet Daniel’s oracle of the Seventy Weeks in Daniel chapter nine. In analyzing the passage the book is divided into three parts: The first sixty nine weeks which predicts the coming Messianic Prince; then the gap between the sixty ninth and Seventieth week; and finally the seventieth week and the coming of the Roman Prince. Daniel 9 has Messianic prophecies that have significance for apologetics which the introduction of the book rightly points out. It is a testimony of the power of the Scriptures and also stirs confidence for the believer that the remaining prophecies of the Seventieth week will no doubt also be fulfilled. I appreciate this book’s argument for why the “weeks” means groupings of seven years and also showing how prophecies up to the sixtieth ninth week have been fulfilled quite literally. This of course strongly suggests that details of the future Seventieth week will be fulfilled literally as well. I thought the author did a good job in carefully cross referencing other passages in order to illuminate Daniel 9 and he was able to do it such a way that one gets the sense he did justice to the text instead of merely “proof-texting” with disregard of the context and also lack of care in thinking through the passage’s inter-textuality. Originally written in 1940 (before the 1948 formation of Israel) and having gone through multiple printing, I find this book to be a classic and a must read.

UPDATE: RALPH AKA “BOGRAPHY” HAS SHARED THAT THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE FOR FREE ONLINE IN A 5 PART PDF SET IF YOU CLICK HERE.

If you must really buy a hard copy of the book, get it over at AMAZON.

This book is a compilation of eleven articles pertaining to the issues of eschatology and dispensationalism with contributions mainly from professors of The Master’s Seminary. I started reading this book in search of possible deeper insights into the Biblical texts pertaining to eschatology, seeing how these articles for the most part came from theological journals. To that end, I found the articles most helpful were those written by the New Testament professor Dr. Robert L. Thomas. He contributed over half of the articles (six) in this volume. His chapter on Revelation 2-3 pointed out how these two chapters alluded to Christ’s second coming, which previously I haven’t really notice before. Relevant to the Amillennial/Premillennial debate is Thomas’ excellent article making a case for the structure of Revelation as basically being temporally progressive rather than that of recapitulation. This is not to say that there is no interlude or “intermission” in the Book of revelation however, since the next chapter Dr. Thomas gave an excellent analysis of the seventh bowl of the Apocalypse. Another thing that I took away from this book is Dr. Thomas and Dr. Barker’s point of how Revelation draws heavily from the Book of Daniel, and how the Book of Daniel as antecedent theology helps inform us and understand Revelation, in particular with Daniel chapter seven. I appreciated the book’s being focused on exegesis, the original language, hermeneutics and the Bible itself rather than sensationalism and “newspaper” speculation that some quarters of pop dispensationalism engage in, which turned me off as a younger Christian. Given its more technical nature, I would recommend this work for readers familiar with the original language. One thing I thought was a bit odd about the book was the editors’ introduction that said the opinions in the book does no necessarily reflect the opinions of The Master’s Seminary when the title of the work is “The Master’s Perspective on Biblical Prophecy.” Then there’s also Dr. Thomas’s Inspired Sensor Plenior Application (ISPA) that I’m not too sure about at this time.

This book is a response to all the new books coming out about those who went to heaven and came back, those with Near Death Experiences (NDE), etc. The author, Hank Hanegraaff, is currently “The Bible Answerman” and overall does a good job dealing with the subjectivity of these “I’ve gone to heaven” books, and how their account contradict the clear teaching of Scripture and one another’s description of heaven. I enjoyed how Hanegraaff also dealt with the issue of hell, and a defense of hell from some of the recent attacks by some within the Evangelical quarter. With this said, there were somethings that I disagree with the book or think it could have done better. His discussion of libertarian free will (LFW) assumes it rather than defends it, and seems to be important in his view of end things. I think his discussion about good angels never sinning even in future heaven hits a dilemma concerning LFW. At times he even sounds like a Calvinists! Furthermore, while the author does believe in a physical reality of our future existence, he does at time have tendency to be driven by a spiritual vision model in his hermeneutics (versus a new creation model). The book does expound Hanegraaff’s Partial Preterism and here he does not have anything new to contribute beyond what Gary DeMar, RC Sproul and others have said. I kind of wished he dealt with some of the objections Christian raise concerning Partial Preterism. I also wished he could have dealt with more scholarly Dispensationalists. At times he was question begging and could have been more nuance–such as his discussion of Rob Bell on hell and also objecting to Dispensationalists Premillennial view because of Revelation 21’s promise that there will no longer be any sorrow on earth–while not accounting for Revelation 20 before chapter 21 and a defense of re-capitulation. I still think Randy Alcorn’s book on heaven is the best of recent book on heaven no matter what view of the Millennium you take.

I write this review an hour before a funeral for a saint at our church.

It was a good reminder about our eternity and keeps our ministry in perspective.

Should have had this up earlier, but here is the lists or index to the marathon series focusing on Calvinistic Dispensationalists stream of Presuppositional apologetics. I have decided to also compiled other posts on Veritas Domain from the past that touched on Dispensationalism and Presuppositionalism.

I plan to add more things to this lists in the future and when that happens I will let readers know of any updates on here. Some ideas of future material include a book review, a consideration of what I call a Theonomic “Transcendental argument against Dispensationalism,” and future interviews. In terms of interviews, I really want to have Dr. John Whitcomb field some questions since it seems so many Dispensationalists have been introduced to Cornelius Van Til’s apologetics through him.

Probably the best contemporary Christian book on Heaven because of it’s depth and also for being Biblically based. You would think that the eternal place where Christians would eventually dwell at would be the subjects of many many books, but it does not seem that there are many works that are in the market that has the Biblical depth that this book has. Randy Alcorn’s work attempts to engage the Christian imagination with questions about what our future in Christ is like after death. The author attacks a Christian platonic conception of our eternal destination, and makes the case that the new heaven for us ultimately will be on a new earth. What I’ve benefited most from the book is that it stirred my heart to think more about my eternal home and also the verses he cite that makes me take another look more carefully concerning heaven. I do admit that sometimes the author does have a bit of stretch of an imagination more than I do, concerning what heaven will be like. But overall, it’s Biblically driven. There are times where the book seems to be repetitive–but if you are reading it over a long period of time (say a chapter a week), the repetition is not necessarily bad but reinforcing truths to us. I highly recommend this book.

Best summary of the defense of the Premillennial view of Revelation 20 that I have read thus far. Worthwhile read. The work was originally a syllabus that the author had for a Bible institute. Currently, the author is an adjunct professor. Waymeyer makes it clear that the work was not intended to give new arguments in support of Premillennialism, but more towards a summary and the gathering of the arguments for a Premillennial interpretation of Revelation 20. However, I did learn several new things from this work. Some of the issues that Waymeyer tackles that I enjoyed includes whether or not there is recapitulation going on in Revelation 20, the issue of a biblical demonology in interpreting when Satan is bound, etc. I think if there is ever another edition of this book, perhaps my compliant is thatsome of the lengthy endnotes can be moved into the main portion of the book since some of the discussion there was worth the attention of the readers. The book can also cite works with a footnote rather than a parenthesis with the author’s name, year of publication and page number, since the serious reader will end up having to have his hands in three different places in the book (one hand on the body, one hand on the footnote page, then still yet another hand on the bibliography). This seems to discourage most readers from thoroughly following the additional supplemental arguments (at times, it seems important enough not to be just left as an endnote!) or track the sources of the citation. The format would not encourage readers to use the endnotes and follow the sources, and defeats the purpose of why citing them in the first place.

The author of this work went from being a Dispensationalist to becoming an adamant critic against Dispensationalism. This work is divided into five chapters, each that were originally published as five articles for the author’s magazine in 1952, the year of his death. Having spiritually benefited from Pink’s work, I do not think this particular work represents Pink’s at his finest. Readers who think of Dispensationalism largely in terms of the system that advocate a pre-tribulational rapture theory and Premillennialism will notice that these two doctrines are not the subject of discussion in the book. Instead, the book focuses largely on the hermeneutical issues of Dispsensationalism’s butchering of the Word of God as being no longer relevant for the church age. I find myself agreeing with Pink when it comes to the issue of more continuity between the Old and the New Testament more than perhaps the typical Dispensationalists would, but I do not believe Pink has offered a refutation of the essence of Dispensationalism. Here it might be good for readers to interact with the current work of contemporary Dispensationalist’s definition of Dispensationalism such as Michael Vlach of The Master’s Seminary and Dr. Feinberg’s contribution in the book, “Continuity and Discontinuity,” and also aware of the common myths about dispsensationalism such as it being necessarily antinominian, teaching salvation by the law, etc.